Dow Jones Industrial Index, Price Return (Since 1900)

This morning’s secular bear market discussion sent me scampering for a way to illustrate that. It gave us yet another look at my favorite long term chart. As you can see above, it shows the long term bull and bear markets (for the most part, the dates are reasonable. One quibble: I would also date the post-war bull as beginning 1946 (some have argued for 1942 as well).

The good news is we are beginning the 14th year of the Secular Bear market that began in March 2000, making us that much closer to its ultimate end.

The bad news is some of these have gone appreciably longer than that (12-18 years in the US). The average of the three prior secular bear markets (18, 12 and 16 years) is a touch over 15 (15.3333). We are less than 6 years from the end date of the prior longest 20th century secular bear, and quite possibly much less.

Caveat: Be ware people claiming 1929-49 as a secular Bear — as the chart above makes clear, there was a distinct uptrend from 1932-37.

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Quote of the Day

Henry Ford

1863 - 1947

I think that much of the advice given to young men about saving money is wrong. I never saved a cent until I was forty years old. I invested in myself–in study, in mastering my tools, in preparation. Many a man who is putting a few dollars a week into the bank would do much better to put it into himself.